We just finished the first day of the Real World OO Development class here in sunny Sarasota, Florida. Today concentrated mostly on an introduction to the jQuery Javascript library and how it can be used to interact with ColdFusion components. This covered basic selectors, some low-level AJAX functionality, and DOM traversal and manipulation. Tomorrow, we'll be rocking out some ColdFusion Component theory.

After class, we had a little free, pool-side dinner (courtesy of the hotel). Then, after that, I ran a two-hour jQuery Q-and-A session in which we walked step by step through several jQuery demonstrations. The demonstrations covered both the use of jQuery as a primary means of execution as well as a way to progressively enhance non-Javascript pages to provide a better user experience. It's important that everyone has at least a basic understanding of jQuery because once we get into Event Driven Programming, things are going to get quite complex.

In personally exciting news, I found out today that guests of the Homewood Suites get free use of the Lifestyle Family Fitness gym. The gym, of which there are a few pictures below, is literally around the corner and takes about a minute to get to in a car. It's a really great gym in a large, open room with a huge variety of equipment. I was able to grab a quick but effective workout at lunch! I was planning to write a little blog post about working out on the road when there's no gym available (bodyweight movements and such), but it looks like I won't even have to think about it! Rawk on!